Henry and Isabella

No, this is not the love story you are expecting - rather a living memory of one.

Day 12 on my recent Minnesota COVID Loop tour: a perfect riding day out of Ely, Minnesota, heading for the north shore of Lake Superior.  Clear sky, cool air, and a soft, yet stimulating tailwind - always appreciated on a bike - with stunning scenery of roller-coaster hills in piney woods.

Forty miles down the road, I meet "Isabella", a small unincorporated hamlet of a few run down buildings, a long vacant motel, and the sole sign of commerce - the Stony River Cafe and Guide Service.  This is the kind of place you roll up to and wonder if its really still open. There were no cars, seemed dark inside, and bit run down.  Yet, with the miles behind and the miles still to come, a lunch spot like this can usually yield satisfying results.

As I was taking off my helmet and decided to enter, up wheels another bicycle tourist, the first one we had seen on our trip in 723 miles.  Naturally, there was a bit of a surprised hello, for what are the odds of two bicyclists, unknown to each other, arriving at the same remote place, with the same intention of a hot lunch and possibly pie?  Enter Henry, a college student at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, studying Education.

We hadn't even made it inside when we were already exchanging information - he making a quick pre-semester tour from La Crosse, Wisconsin to Ely - in 3 days.  Now, study this geography: to cover this distance requires two 160+ miles per day, and a final day - this one - at around 125 miles from Duluth, where he stayed last night. This is double our long days in the saddle! Travelling light, with belongings in a pillow case stuffed into a trash bag, loosely strapped to his bike (to him, a college "pannier"), staying at friends or motels along the way, and accomplishing this on his father's old Bianchi bicycle.  Nothing fancy, but Henry is a self-described endurance athlete that took himself out of other riding/racing opportunities out west due to COVID, and just had to test his limits on  more local ride.  

He found his limit.  He needed food. 

We finally entered the cafe that Tom built.  Tom, an octogenarian, still does everything - cook, clean, tend to customers with what would appear to urbanites accustomed to a more refined dining experience as "curmudgeonly" attention.  Yet I think we surprised him as both entering his restaurant at the same time, with no other customers, in our bicycle attire - not a common sight to be certain.  Henry ordered his lunch while we talked and I waited for my riding partner Rich to come up, which he soon did.

Now, this is not a fancy place by any means, but it has character.  There are stuffed animals and animal trophy mounts everywhere.  Old black and white pictures of hunting, fishing and logging line the walls. Implements hung and a warm elkhorn lamp.  An ancient cash register, but it works.  A counter with old round stools, and round glass sugar dispensers. The menu has probably been unchanged for decades, and if you need service, you may need to wander into the adjacent kitchen and search for Tom.  We came to know some local customers on this visit - two long retired fellas who came in after us for some pie after fishing - who have been coming here for years, "just to keep Tom company."  They too soon fell into a conversation with us about our tours.

So Tom listened intermittently to our conversations about bicycling as he worked, and after bringing out Henry's lunch, causally brought up that he "did that once before - what you're doing.  Rode 120 miles over two days on a single speed bicycle up beyond Brainerd, with a backpack carrying my camping gear - back  in 1954!!!  He won our hearts right then as he took our orders for chili.  This guy, who should have retired ages ago, is the life of this place, its heart and soul.

Henry wolfed down his lunch and casually asked Tom if he takes a credit card.  Now experience tells me that in a place like this, credit cards have never existed, its cash or maybe even a check.  Young fellas like Henry haven't perhaps experienced this ancient custom, and certainly never use checks.  I sensed a sudden "uh-oh" moment as Henry carefully pulled out his cash and counted up $3.00 and change, not enough to cover what he already ate.  He looked a bit sheepish as I flipped him a $20 and told him to have pie - he would need it for the road ahead.  Grateful, pie came instantly - with a huge scoop of ice cream.  Fuel for the road ahead.

So reset the scene - a timeless cafe in the middle of nowhere that a moment ago was empty, suddenly filled with a twenty something endurance athlete, an 80+ year old crotchety cook, two 70+ retired fishermen, and two 60+ something bicyclists, engaging in conversations that take up all the head space of this tiny cafe.  And then it ends.  We finish lunch.  Henry has to leave, and I tell him to "pay it forward" and finish safely, and swiftly he vanishes westward.  We have to push for Superior and so we leave with a scene of Tom, perched by his ancient counter, chatting with his old timers, and we the better for this experience.

 

When Tom goes, this place goes too.  It will be like the abandoned hotel next door, or any number of other wayside places that lived their lives in a former heyday, now overgrown, abandoned with ghosts of this moment and others haunting its existence, dependent on Tom for its life. 

Next time we pass, it will be gone.  This a "fleeting capture" of Americana, a somewhat sobering, serendipitous, and uplifting experience.